Sunday, September 26, 2010

The Shabâb are a hardcore islamist faction fighting in the civil war in Somalia since at least 2005. They are linked to AQ and control most of southern Somalia. You may have heard about them after the World Cup final as they bombed football fans in Uganda.

On Sunday 19th a new audio release was posted on the Ansâr (arabic) forum, one of the "official" internet forums that are used to publish AQ's and their allies statements. Last Sunday's audio ('Aid khutbah by Muhammad M'alin 'Ali Nahr) was released unofficially though. That means the content is official (Shabâb AQ ally), released on the official place (Ansar) BUT not released officially (Shabâb via al Fajr or the GIMF). Instead the release was done by the Ansar forum with a helping hand from al Qimmah (a predominantly Somali forum). How does this work?

Somewhere in Somalia the Shabâb guy makes his speech in front of the worshippers on 'Aid. Obviously there are Shabâb supporters present. They tape what Muhammad M'alin had to say, edit it slightly upload and release it. So as you see this is not magic. People can do it in their home office. And while the "official" releases are quite often more than just an audio it is still not as professional as the media says it is. I mean I have seen students at school making films as school projects that are equally "professional".

Okay as for the audio, it is the usual stuff. 29 minutes and 15 seconds of jihâd now. The speaker even quotes late Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqâwi (AQI) at one point. The speech switches from Arabic to Somali about halfway. I think the Somali is just a translation but as I don't speak Somali there is no way to tell.

'Aid sermon in Mogadishu 2009

It is possible that the guy speaking is the same who is seen in the Shabâb release from November 2009 showing 'Aid prayers in Mogadishu.. The same Zarqâwi quote is used.

It is as far as I know the first instance of an unofficial release linked to Shabâb made by an Arabic forum.

2. The video of Ebu Zer (unofficial) - Afghanistan

Ebu Zer is Turk who fought in the Second Chechen War until 2007. He joined the group Ta´ifah al Mansûrah that consists of Turks and Muslims from the former Soviet Union. He was said to have been arrested in January. Turkish jihâdi websites advertised a new video featuring an attack on US forces in Afghanistan carried out under command of Ebu Zer. It was said that the video was recent (August 22nd, 2010). If the video is indeed recent he obviously wasn't arrested in Turkey.

The video has until now not been released officially but is floating around for some weeks now (in poor quality). Its duration is 8 minutes and 30 seconds and it does indeed shows Ebu Zer and other Turks shooting rockets. The video says the target is a US base in Kunar/Afghanistan.

Ebu Zer, a jihâdi from Turkey, preparing a rocket launcher in Afghanistan, shown in a recent though unofficial video.

That guy is the one and only well known Turk jihâdi in a commanding position outside of Chechnya. He is pure gold for propaganda aimed at Turkish Muslims.

3. 'Awlaqi photos (unofficial) - Yemen

A set of photos showing Anwar al 'Awlaqi was posted to the usual forums today (September 26th). 'Awlaqi is an American-Arab living in Yemen nowadays being on the run from the CIA and their drones. He is one of those "dead or alive" guys. He is linked to the local AQ group and about any attack on the "US homeland". He is not a bomb expert but a preacher - a well known and influential one in English speaking Muslim societies. The poster says a new sermon by 'Awlaqi is coming soon. Let's see.

On a side note: The pictures don't show the local AQ media group (al Malâhim) logo. While everyone and his cat say that 'Awlaqi is AQAP (AQ on the Arabian Peninsular, means Yemen and Saudi-Arabia) I feel we haven't seen proof yet. I mean he definitely talks like them and even with them (al Malâhim interview with 'Awlaqi) but as of now he looks more like an independent "scholar" or "hate preacher", kind of like the recently arrested Abu Muhammad al Maqdissi.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Some hours ago a lecture by Usâmah bin Lâden was released on the usual internet forums. The lecture is about the hadîth (A hadîth is a report of a saying or an action of Muhammad, the prophet of Islâm. Look it up on wiki, it is just too long to write about it in detail today morning) of K'aab bin Malik. The hadîth is about how K'aab did not go to battle and how much of a sin that was. UBL is applying it to today's situation declaring anyone who is not in jîhad sinful. Anyway that is not the interesting thing.

The lecture has been around in Arabic for ages (maybe even pre 9/11, but not sure about that, it is definitely recorded pre 9/11 though). Today morning it was released in Urdu (the lingua franca of Pakistan). Nothing unusual here, it is quite common for AQC to release video files in multiple languages or to rerelease a file in another language after it had been posted in Arabic at a prior date.

So what is the unusual thing about it? Well, one of those internet forums (Ansar English) released this lecture by UBL translated by them to English on August 12th. The official (made by AQ) Urdu release followed on September 18th. A coincidence? I don't think so.

I personally believe that the Urdu version was triggered by the English one that was not made by AQ but by AQ fans. AQ's media wing monitors what their supporters/fans do and reacts. This is nothing new AQ behaved like this before. But I think this is the first time that a fan made translation into one language was followed up by AQ with an official translation into another language. Therefore I consider it somewhat noteworthy as it is a situation where we see how AQ and its supporters interact.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

After long weeks of silence the topic has become big. It's everywhere on the news. I neither support the act nor the media coverage but I want to add a new angle. I am sure that Terry Jones wants to offend Muslims BUT is burning the Qur`an an offensive act?

Everyone who studies Middle Eastern studies please remember how the Qur`an was compiled ... yeah 3rd Caliph 'Uthman did so, right. And? What did he do with the manuscripts he used to compile from? Right, he BURNED them.

Burning the Qur`an is religiously speaking not an offensive act at all. See thisfatwah (religious edict) from Saudi Arabia, homeland of Wahabism (a very rigid form of Islam):

"Burning, i.e., burning old copies of the Mus-haf in a careful and respectable manner, in a clean and safe place, whilst ensuring that the words are consumed by the fire and the pages are changed.

The scholars based this view on what ‘Uthmaan (may Allaah be pleased with him) did with the Mus-hafs that differed from what the Sahaabah were unanimously agreed upon. Al-Bukhaari (may Allaah have mercy on him) narrated (hadeeth no. 4987) from Anas ibn Maalik that ‘Uthmaan ibn ‘Affaan (may Allaah be pleased with him) ordered Zayd ibn Thaabit, ‘Abd-Allaah ibn al-Zubayr, Sa’eed ibn al-‘Aas and ‘Abd al-Rahmaan ibn al-Haarith ibn Hishaam to make copies of the Mus-hafs. ‘Uthmaan said to the three Qurashi men: If you differ with Zayd ibn Thaabit concerning anything of the Qur’aan, then write it in the dialect of Quraysh, for it was revealed in their tongue. They did that, then when they had copied the pages in Mus-hafs, ‘Uthmaan returned the pages to Hafsah, and he sent to each country one of the Mus-hafs that they had copied, and he ordered that all other copies of the Qur’aan on pages or in books be burned."

So while Jones intends to disrespect the Qur`an and is thereby offending Muslims worldwide the act itself is not an offense. Muslims do so themselves if they want to get rid of old copies of the Qur`an.

What does this show?

- Either Jones is pretty dumb and didn't research anything about the Qur`an or he is pretty smart and did his homework well.
- Those Muslims protesting the act are either not that educated in their religion or they protest against the intention (disrespect) behind the act which is indeed offending.

The forth video - the karaoke one was obviously made between 2003 and 2005 NOT 2004 - 2006.
I mean the screens have been captured in early 2005. If 'Umar Hadîd indeed attended that meeting the video would be pre November 2004 as he got killed in the second Battle of Fallujah.

1. Abu Hamzah is seen building a car bomb. He is unveiled (clearly recognizable) and a flag of Jamâ'ah Tawhîd wal Jihâd (predecessor group to Al Qâ'idah in Irâq) is shown. This means that it is from 2003 or 2004. JTJ became AQI in October 2004.
The video is an instructional video on how to make car bombs and may have been for internal use only.
Thus the footage was never released officially but captured by US troops and shown on CNN in late 2006/early 2007 after Abu Hamzah took command of AQI. The video is blurred, no worries!

2. The execution of the Turkish truck driver Murat Yuce, which was released by JTJ on August 2nd 2004. Abu Hamzah is veiled. Neither does he identify himself nor is he identified but his voice is heard (recognizable) as he reads out a statement consisting of a stern warning to Muslims to seize working with the "occupier" or face execution for apostasy. He than executes the hostage by shooting. Everything happens in front of a JTJ flag.The execution is not shown!

3. Abu Hamzah appears at the end of the major AQI production on the Battle of Abu Ghraib. The video was officially released by AQI sometime in summer 2005 (I believe there are different versions with different length (ca. 40 to ca. 70 minutes) and names. The video is referred to as "Battle of Abu Ghraib", "Invasion of the martyr Abu Anas al-Shami", "Lions of Monotheism", and probably many other jolly names.). Abu Hamzah is only identified as "one of the military officers" of AQI but his voice is clearly recognizable. His speech is entitled "Message to the scholars of the ummah" (the Islamic Nation - means all Muslims) and is an appeal to Islamic scholars to support the insurgents in Iraq.

Well, now I do have some questions in mind.
- Why does Furqan show this totally good for nothing clip of Abu Hamzah while there exists "action footage" of him (even unveiled)?
- And if I am right about the karaoke clip and the new Furqan clip being from the same occasion one may ask if that day was the only one they had a camera on while Abu Hamzah was unveiled?
- Or did they loose everything in raids as they did with the bomb instruction video?
- As shown above Abu Hamzah's face was known to his adversaries 2006 onwards (pictures and recent videos). Why the shyness? Why didn't he appear (veiled or unveiled) in some Furqan propaganda video when they really needed a moral boost (basically everyday since early 2008)?

I shall try to guess the answers myself:

Furqan has indeed lost most of its pre-2007 archives. In some of their releases one can see an older and a newer logo on the same scene which means that they don't have access to the original footage and had to get their own released videos from the internet. This just doesn't work with unpublished footage.

No access means that their video library got raided and they don't have them any longer in most cases but there is the slight possibility that they just can't reach their libraries for security reasons (read: improved security situation in post-surge Iraq, numerous checkpoints etc.).

As for Abu Hamzah not showing his face on Furqan while being alive it's obviously not for religious reasons. He appeared on film before. I think it's sure to say that he was "paranoid". Understandably so if you look at the fate of his predecessor who got killed just two months after he appeared in an official video.

Basically Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi pre-April 2006 had the same preconditions as Abu Hamzah. His face was known from old video footage and photos, there were quite new photos of him available and presumably even video files (with unveiled face - "karaoke video").

I believe it has nothing to do with the face being known to the general population. I can't see old Abu Mus'ab sipping his Latte macchiato at the local bar in B'aqûbah and the barkeeper calls the cops on him. Such people hide. The lesser people know where - the better it is. I suppose the dangerous thing that eventually led to his death was the "official video release" part in April 2006.

- They had a media crew coming to his locations --> many people who knew where he is (or at least was at a given moment) --> bad thing for everyone on the run
- The media crew coming to his location --> many outsiders came to his hood --> many people saw that something's going on --> same as above
- The media crew had to polish the video and tried (and managed) to get the video out to the internet. --> The video passed many hands and somewhere it may have been intercepted. --> same as above

This had not been the case with the "karaoke video". It was shot by someone of the inner circle while the "official release" one had a "real" cameraman and I doubt that Abu Mus'ab's inner circle had a single "real" cameraman on its membership list.

So I presume that Abu Hamzah paid attention, learned his lesson and remained with audio files that he could record on his own with a mobile phone or on a laptop sending the file via trusted couriers. But as we all know in the end that didn't help him either.

Supplement 1:

Oh, and I think it was for the same reasons that Abu 'Umar al Baghdadi did not show his face on video while his face was already wanted since 2007. But in his case one has to admit that it had its tactical merits with the Iraqi government embarrass itself numerous times claiming to have arrested him and even putting him on TV (See talisman gate's archive for many of these stories) thereby eroding their credibility. Yet this was due to the blunders of the Iraqi government and wouldn't have happened just because of Abu 'Umar's facelessness.

Supplement 2:

And while we are on topic - this is in my opinion the main reason why we don't see OBL (Usamah bin Laden) on video on 'Aid. I'm curious about tomorrow ...

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

- Abu Hamzah al Muhajir, previous kunyah (nickname, warrior name) Abu Ayyub al Misri, associate of Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi and his successor as Amir of Al Qa'idah in Iraq.Thus he became Minister of War and later on Minister of War/Prime Minister of the Islamic State of Iraq. He was killed on April 17th 2010 near Tikrît together with the state's TM Amir Abu 'Umar al Baghdadi.

Furqan which is the official media organisation of the state TM released a new video on September 6th, named Invasion of the Prisoners 2 (غـــزوة الأسيــــر2).

I plan to post an overview and thoughts on the Invasion of the Prisoner attacks soon but I want to go ahead and give my opinion on about 10 seconds of the video (28:30 onwards). Shown is a meeting of three persons in a closed room. One of them is Abu Hamzah. He is greeted by one of the other men and it looks like he is introduced to the third man. A forth person briefly gets in the way of the cameraman. Abu Hamzah hugs the third man as in greeting him goodbye.

This made the co-blogger at Polinews-International suspect that he may have been a suicide bomber. I disagree. This looks like a leadership coming together. How so?

Well the second man, the one that is sitting next to Abu Hamzah is (according to me) none other than Abu J'afar al Maqdissi who was according to jihadi internet postings (which I did not save at that time) the personal bodyguard of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and was killed with him and 4 other bodyguards in the US bombing on their safe house near B'aqûbah on June 7th 2006.A video was unofficially released after Abu J'afar's deathshowing him giving a speech and singing. He is identified as Abu J'afar.

Abu J'afar al Maqdissi - left in the recent Furqan release (not named), right in an unofficial video (named)

So the 10 seconds clip was made at a time when Abu Hamzah was not yet AQI Amir. I consider it legitimate to believe that Abu Mus'ab's bodyguard is not in that house without his boss. And there is another indication that this is a leadership meeting.

Back in early 2005 the Americans nearly captured Abu Mus'ab, he got out of the car but his driver and a laptop were taken. On the laptop were to be found a number of pictures, the first unveiled pictures of Abu Mus'ab out of Iraq.

CNN published them exclusively but unfortunately they have taken the gallery down but the co-blogger at Diggers Realm has some of them up. (If you have saved all the pictures from this gallery please send them over!) See below.

CNN exclusive: Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi on a captured photo (2005)

After Abu Mus'ab's death and a while into Abu Hamzah's reign as commander a video appeared showing a gathering of commanders.

Shown are Abu Hamzah, Abu Mus'ab, Abu J'afar and one other man (rumours on jihadi internet forums said that Abu 'Umar al Kurdi and Abu Khattab al Falluji ('Umar Hadid) were there but I don't know if it is one of them. Both these men were AQ bigshots then.) relaxing, singing and cracking jokes.

The YouTube video is cut and one can't see the man who is pictured on the CNN exclusive above but there may exist a version which is not as cut as this one.

The room that is shown looks similar to the one in the recent release. Especially the door is an eye catcher. The positioning of Abu Hamzah and Abu J'afar next to the door fits. It may show the same meeting some hours apart, the clip from the new release being shot at the arrival or departure of the attendants. While the CNN pictures and the unofficial video show the closing time karaoke of the AQI leadership.

Abu Hamzah and Abu J'afar: left in the recent Furqan release, right in an unoffical video found on the internet - this maybe the same room but from different viewing directions

Even if the two videos show different meetings the appearance of Abu J'afar in the new Furqan release is in my eyes enough indication of the presence of Abu Mus'ab. And I just don't think that suicide bombers are invited to such big shot meetings. Besides not only suicide bombers get hugged :-P

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

This is my first post and it is about something that I do not consider that important but I wanted to start and the two bigger posts which are in my opinion on important or at least interesting developments in the conflict that was commonly known as the Global War on Terror take some more time to be finished.

On September 5th 2010 a statement (signed on September 2nd) was posted to jihadist internet forums announcing that a number of field commanders from the ranks of the Islamic Army in Iraq (once the second biggest Sunni insurgent group then at least in some cases the Awakening forces that basically made the Surge a victory for the US) had created a group known as the Movement for Correction and Renewal of the Islamic Army in Iraq. The new group got a plan:

1. Throwing out the Amir (Commander) of the group who is based outside of Iraq and replacing him with one who is based inside.

- If you ask me the Amir is either in Amman or in Damascus

- Who is this man - we never got a name (for some qualified speculations see here) - Who bets that the new one is one of them field commanders?

2. The current official spokesman(that would be Dr. Ibrahim al-Shamarri)who is also based outside Iraq is replaced too.- Like Amir like official spokesman

3. Everyone in the group should stop any contact to the old leadership.

- Read: There are quite some field commanders who as of yet do not belong to this new IAI and it is not granted that they come over. And: This is not just a split. Those splitting of are trying to take control of the whole group.

4. Try and unite the Sunni groups and forget the past.

- Could mean reconciliation with the Islamic State in Iraq (once and maybe still the biggest Sunni insurgent group - and Al Qa'idah in Iraq belongs to them) or it is the usual "I have a dream ... that all Sunnis join ranks."

5. New policy

6. New constitution

7. All decisions by the old leadership are void.

The given reasons:

- The jihâd in Iraq has seen better days. - Definitely.

- Some people shattered the unity of the insurgents by their hizbiyah (partisanship to their group in a negative way).

- This is tricky: It may refer to the Islamic State or to its opponents among the Sunni groups. In full context of the statement I would say it's the opponents of the State that are the evil ones but not too sure on this.

- There are internal problems: The leadership is outside of Iraq, they do not communicate their political aims (which may be dodgy) to the field commanders, they are careerists and take money that is harâm (Islamic term that means forbidden). The IAI was becoming more of a tribal force than an Islamist one.- Wow. The money thing in league with tribal force and political career smells like the Renewal IAI accuses the old one to be sahwah (Awakening). What I consider remarkable in these internal problems is that they are mentioned. Usually (or so I think) if a split occurs in a group there is some "for tactical reasons ... may Allah help and reward them ..." but here we got a barrage of accusations which is just huge. Again I think this is an indication that the Renewal IAI tries to absorb the old one and claims legitimacy for itself. Why oh why do I remember Ireland now and did you ever watch Life of Brian?

Okay, what to make out of all of this? We see a resurgent Islamic State of Iraq and there are claims that some Awakenings switched and switch teams again. If this is the beginning of a return to the old days with a significant number of other Sunni insurgents in league with the Al Qa'idah backed State TM than this is big news. But for now it is too early to say.

Another thing is clear though. Renewal IAI got a media section and posted its first video on September 6th. It claims to show an RKG3 (thermal grenade) attack on US troops in Hawîjah on August 11th. I think it is a good possibility that this attack was carried out by people who did not hear about the Renewal IAI until September 5th. On a strange side note the video release is signed by "the military office" instead of the usual "the media office".

See the original statements in Arabic as well as some screens from the video below: